15th Lecture on the Apocalypse of John (Documentation)

We are at the 7 churches or the epistles to the 7 churches, the 7 churches represent the 7 cultural epochs, 4 of which have already passed, we are now in the fifth, still in the first third, it is just starting up so comfortably, but the pace will increase. There are a lot of things coming up. The development is accelerating very strongly. Incarnations are becoming more frequent, we also speak of reincarnation, incarnations follow each other relatively closely, long gone is this cosmic measure where one says in a cultural epoch one comes on average twice, once as a man, once as a woman, to look at it from both perspectives. Now the incarnations are much more frequent. This will also increase in the near future and then decrease again. Today we will also talk about when  The end of earthly incarnations is coming, at least for a large part of humanity, relatively soon. It is not so far in the future when a larger part of humanity will have reached the point where they no longer need an earthly incarnation to continue their spiritual development. 

Great initiates in the past have already managed to change their lives, to develop in such a way that they no longer need an earthly incarnation, at least for their own development, e.g. the historical Buddha, or the Buddhas in general, there were several. Buddha-dignity means that one has reached the point where one no longer needs an earthly incarnation. But there are other initiates who have already reached the point where they no longer need it for themselves, but who then, of their own free will, descend again to an earthly incarnation in order to work here, because certain tasks can only be fulfilled in the earthly incarnation in order to help people here. Among the great initiates there are two groups, one which is so far advanced that it only works from over there in the spiritual realm, and others who are also so advanced, but who quite consciously descend to earth and then incarnate very often. There are often 15-20 years between incarnations. They are then embodied in every century. 

One such initiate is, for example, Christian Rosenkreuz, as R. Steiner says quite clearly. Another one for whom this is certainly the case is the Master Jesus, that Solomonic Jesus who was born at the turn of time as one of the two Jesus boys. We have already spoken of the fact that two Jesus boys were born at the turn of the times, on the one hand the nathanic jesuswho, in a certain sense, provided the suitable body shells for the Christ, but how, on the other hand, there is still a Solomon Jesus He was none other than Zarathustra, that Zarathustra who is also not easy to grasp historically because there are few records of him, but of whom R. Steiner also says that he was incarnated more often, much more often, also in this Urpersian time, the second cultural epoch. 

We have spoken about how these two Jesus boys, or these two youths, later become one person, in that the I of Zarathustra or of the Solomonic Jesus changes over into the body shells of the Nathanian Jesus. He was incarnated for the very first time on earth and in him the part of the Adamic being that remained innocent was embodied. At the time of the Fall, when Adam, or a large part of the Adamic being, fell prey to the Luciferic temptation, which was absolutely necessary in order to ultimately make freedom possible for us, this fall out of Paradise was necessary and important. But a part was retained of pure soul forces, above all also of pure life forces, where it is indicated in the Bible by the words: Now that you have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat also of the tree of life. The tree of life refers to these etheric powers of the later Nathanian Jesus, who is then first born on earth at the turn of time. There is also a certain time gap between the birth of these two Jesus boys.

It is important that they then unite into one personality. In the Nathanian Jesus, there is no place for an earthly I in this sense. The human being receives the earthly I with the earthly incarnations. This begins with the first earthly incarnation. Most people, however, had already had several or even many incarnations at the turn of time and therefore already had something like a developed human I, in which freedom was not yet really realised but was already clearly predisposed. In the case of the Nathanian Jesus, who is here for the first time, we know that the I only really awakens in the 21st year of life, but the transition of the I of the Solomon Jesus takes place in the 12th year of life, i.e. before the I was formed in the case of the Nathanian Jesus. Therefore there is no problem at all, nothing has to be displaced from there or go away, but a personality emerges from it, which now on the one hand provides the perfect body shells, which are therefore not clouded by the Fall, at least not from the etheric side, not from the astral side, from the soul side, a certain impact is of course in there, because the whole thing still has to go through the hereditary current, so that a physical body comes into being. It doesn't come about by hocus-pocus out of thin air. There are forces in it, of course. But in any case, the best conditions have been created. 

The Christ only enters with the baptism of the Jordan in the thirtieth year of the life of this being, who can now be called Jesus of Nazareth as this one individuality. All this took place in the fourth cultural epoch. In the fifth cultural epoch we already find very strongly the fruits that have remained with us through the earthly life of the Christ, namely the impulse that the I can awaken to the consciousness of its freedom. This is only now beginning, that one can build upon the free activity of the I. Until then, people were guided by higher beings. Now, of course, these higher entities are still there and the Christ in particular is there, but they only act in such a way that they absolutely respect the freedom of the human being and only become active when the human being wants it out of his freedom, when he allows it. 

In other words, today we are called upon to really develop awareness for our I, and specifically for the spiritual side of our I. Everyone has a certain feeling for it, I have an I, I am an individuality, but if you then ask more closely, what is the I, then it becomes difficult. We know it's there, like a hole in the wall, a black thing, there's something there, but we don't see what it is. It is a central point in us. Today, however, we have the chance to penetrate a spiritual experience by experiencing first of all our I, our individuality. With this, our consciousness begins to turn towards the spiritual world in general, which in the past turned away in truth from the spiritual world, basically already in the fourth cultural epoch, i.e. in the Greco-Latin period, this comes to an end for most people, even in the Egyptian period it is only possible to experience the spiritual world through corresponding initiation processes, therefore only since this time have there been all the initiation rites, which are supposed to serve to awaken the consciousness for the spiritual world again. Before that there was no such thing. Before that, people experienced the spiritual world or the soul world around them much more than they experienced the outer world or themselves. One must not think that people in the past would have perceived the world as we do. This has been described in great detail in the past lectures. There are big changes there. 

Since Egyptian times, however, this development of one's own inner world, of the soul, which is in there, thus forms its own world, which is formed by our I semi-consciously, in which our I lives, and where it slowly notices, aha, I am active in it, I also change this world somehow. Today we have arrived at the age of the consciousness soul, i.e. today we only have the clear consciousness for the outer world, in former times people dealt with the outer world much more instinctively. They dealt with it very skilfully, but they did not observe as closely as we do, certainly not put anything under the microscope or look into the telescope, but it was more an instinctive wisdom that was there, especially in Egyptian times. With the Greeks, philosophy slowly emerged, but at the beginning they were not so much aware of their own thinking, but they noticed that thoughts were coming in, partly at the same time as sensory perception, at the beginning they did not yet have the feeling that I was thinking, but rather that it was thinking in me. This thinking comes in with the sensory perception. The word idea (Greek: idein) is connected with videin = looking, with seeing, really with external seeing too. But with the Greeks there was a final transition, where something spiritual was still seen in the form of ideas. This is what the Platonic vision of ideas boils down to. Aristotle is then someone who becomes much more aware of his own thinking. We should increase that today! To really direct our consciousness towards thinking itself. Not only on the finished thoughts. We have also discussed that there is a big difference between really observing one's own thinking and only observing the result of thinking, namely the thoughts that may not even be ours, but which we may have picked up from somewhere. 

Most of what we absorb through education today are more or less ready-made thoughts that we carry around, and when we grow up in another culture or another time, it looks quite different.  If we are honest, did we really think them ourselves? We have taken them over. We think a little bit ourselves, but for the most part they are just there. But that is not yet real thinking. Real thinking is where we basically create thoughts out of nothing through our thinking. These thoughts are then our own. Not only by creating our thoughts, but by creating ourselves through them. That's what we realise in there. That this thinking is a spiritual activity, and a spiritual activity is a creative activity, and every creative activity begins by creating itself as a spiritual being again and again. Uninterruptedly. It is not a process that is finished once. Then say, that's just the way I am. It goes on and on. We are constantly recreating ourselves. In the last lectures we described the image of the phoenix rising from its ashes. We continuously emerge as the beautiful phoenix bird and then a flash of light or a flash of fire, it disintegrates again into ashes, from which we have to recreate ourselves again. This goes on uninterruptedly in timelessness. It doesn't need time, but it happens continuously. Eternity and the moment are ONE, they are outside of space and time. That is where we are. 

Breaking through to such an experience means getting an idea of what one's own I is. To experience this in thinking first. That is not yet clairvoyance in the true sense, but it prepares it. Clairvoyance basically arises when we manage to experience this very awake thinking and the observation of this thinking, including the emotional level, but now fully consciously. We lift something spiritual into it and this spiritual begins to develop.  mental creative process. A pictorial experience arises that can now be called pure imagination. A pictorial experience which, however, no longer has anything of the sensual when it is in its pure form, but which rises from within. It cannot be described. When we mean soulful, we think of feelings, that is the surface we see, but that is far too little, that is really only the outermost shadow, there is much more behind it. In the imagination, that rises and becomes soul experience. It is a spiritual experience that is related to feelings, one could say a much greater and stronger emotional experience, with sympathy, with antipathy, which are, however, quite objective, sympathy means: I have the will to connect with a spiritual being, to get completely involved with it, to become completely ONE with it and thereby get to know it and then take something back again, but for this I need the antipathy to separate again. Without moral judgement, so it is not our everyday sympathy/antipathy, I like him, I don't like him, but it is a completely objective process that I call forth willingly.

Unconsciously, we do this today in every social contact without consciously noticing it, we intuitively connect with the other person, if we don't do this, then we would only see the other person as an external object that moves the mouth, sound comes out, I can register it, but I don't register it at all as a human being, only externally. The point is that during this intuitive experience we actually fall asleep, we don't consciously experience it. R. Steiner always says: the primal social phenomenon is that we put each other to sleep. We fall asleep in each other, we don't realise it, but we take something of it with us, the more we take it back to ourselves, the more awake it becomes and we get a corner of it in our consciousness. It's reciprocal, the other way round is the same. The problem with intuitive experience is that we fall asleep with our present consciousness. When we are inside the intuition, we are asleep at first. In the future, we will be able to live consciously inside, it is still ahead of us.

In our cultural epoch, it is already partly in store for us if we consciously work on ourselves spiritually. In order to raise thinking to spiritual perception, to imagination, we first have to wake up in our emotional life, but for the deeper layers, then we take something into it, then in imagination we really take this richly differentiated interplay between sympathy/antipathy, connecting with spiritual entities, grasping them in their way and separating from them again, that is actually the imagination. Now, in truth, it cannot be described in this way, because we have no words for it, but it can be translated into a sensual image. Even R. Steiner cannot describe it in any other way than by translating it into sensual images. You can see in the pictures that it is not really an outer sensual experience, because often things occur that are not possible in the sensual, but nevertheless the sensual qualities are there, perhaps people appear, angels appear that look human but have wings, but you must not imagine the angels as human beings with wings, that is an image. The wings are strongly connected with the etheric activity that we as human beings also carry out with our hands, especially with our arms, comparable to our arms, not when I take hold of an object, that doesn't matter, but when I give expression to my soul life in movement, in gestures, then I have an image for it, because in truth, what are we doing? Just when we move the arms, actually move the ether arms, then we think our destiny. We don't consciously realise it. 

That is why R. Steiner, when he looks for previous incarnations of people, very often the stimulus is the gestures that the person makes, the kind of movement, in which speaks his whole destiny, his whole karma, which is expressed in the movement, if you learn to read it, you find access to it. As long as we can't do that consciously, the angelic being, who is closely connected with us, does that. We all have an angelic being that is very closely connected with us, and we need it above all so that this angel can oversee our destiny, our karma over the whole generations. Because we can't do that at the moment, at least most of us. That's difficult, that's where the angel helps us. But of course we are slowly called upon to at least recognise where I meet people with whom I am fatefully connected. That is already a first step. At the beginning it is not so much a question of, I was incarnated there and there, a king there, a high priest there, these are certainly usually fantasies, because if it is really a high initiate, he will hardly tell it in a big way, he simply works, often quite modestly, if his task allows it, completely in secret. 

Great initiates work in such a way that no man knows that it is a great initiate except another initiate when he meets it. He works through this in a very simple way, by simply being able to grasp the people to whom he has something to give, or to whom he can give an impulse, so well that a few words are enough, they seem completely trivial on the outside, but it settles in the other person because he has hit the exact point of what his destiny task is. A person has the task, but the point is, does he wake up to the fact that he is taking up this task? Or does he simply sleep through it? When someone has reached the point where he can consciously take up this task, then it is often helpful to give him an impulse, it is often just a single word that comes up again and again in the person and gains in importance, then something grows out of it and that is his life's task. This usually happens in a very inconspicuous way. It is a great rarity that R. Steiner went out into the world in this way, but it was a necessity to bring spiritual science into the public eye. And to show that in our age, in the fifth cultural period, it is already possible for people, if they want to, to come by their own efforts to a spiritual knowledge that has scientific clarity. That will be an essential element to cultivate for the future. 

Because today we are still working for the most part with a way of thinking that is an heirloom from the Greco-Latin period, but a basically dead heirloom from that period. It goes downhill, it is enough to understand the dead up to a certain point, the dead, but then it already stops. Above all, it has no future, because nothing creative comes into it. One can combine and try out many things, which can of course be very ingenious, an ingenious combinatorics, which requires high intelligence, no question, Ahriman has this intelligence to the highest degree. But basically it is combining something that exists, it can be surprising and amazing what comes out of it, but still, it is not really creative. It is creative where something is created out of nothing, creating itself first out of nothing, and then beyond that creating further out of nothing. That is where the truly spiritual begins.

For that we would have to develop a consciousness in our cultural epoch and it will only mature to a certain degree in the next cultural epoch, which lies in the future, i.e. after the year 3500 AD. We still have some time there. A lot will happen there. The world will change enormously. Also through technology. It will have an ever greater influence on the whole of nature. Let us hope that it is a good influence. We must remember that on the one hand there are destructive forces in technology, but there are also forces that nature will need in order to survive. Nature cannot survive as long as it is supposed to without the help of humans. That is very important today in the environmental protection debate and the climate protection debate, that we must be aware that a return to nature as in the old days will not work, it will not work for us humans, it would also be completely pointless, but it would not work for nature either. Instead, it needs us. We just have to learn to do it in the right way, by creating the right balance between building up but also breaking down forces. 

The degrading forces are important, as with us in human life, we also need the death forces within us. It would be terrible for our spiritual development if death did not exist. Apart from the fact that it wouldn't work on earth if no being died any more. But it wouldn't work spiritually either. Because at a certain point in time, the body that we have chosen for a certain task, that we have formed, is no longer suitable for it. We then have to get new fresh forces in the spiritual world and build ourselves a different kind of body that now fits our newly acquired spiritual forces. This also applies to nature on a large scale. Nature also needs these decomposing forces inside. Ahriman plays a role in this, technology plays a role in this, where we also work inside, you have to be aware that technology actually only brings down forces, the question is whether it brings it in the right way. 

Also important are the building forces, such as biodynamic agriculture, which are impulses that serve to supply life forces to the earth. We will need both. Very important life forces that can be supplied to the earth are also those that we develop through living thinking. Today this is still in its infancy. But it will become more and more important. Already in life on earth. But especially in life after death, because then these life forces that we have developed in thinking, we really develop life forces, will become active in nature to a great extent and will change the earth in such a way that it will also be suitable for our next incarnation. It has to fit together. Then it also works for nature outside. If there is a gap between nature life and human life, then it is problematic for both sides. That's where you have to strive for harmony. That is where we are in the process of learning. It is a difficult task to learn that, in learning some things go wrong. As human beings, we tend to learn everything with a lot of pain and a lot of damage first. That's the way it is. That's how experiences are, we wake up to them, they are part of the process. The forces of death are part of this waking up. It is precisely on the dead that we wake up the most. When life is going great, we dream away. That's when we learn the least, wake up the least. But we also need these phases to process what we have learned and to develop it into a real force. 

When you rehearse a play in theatre, then you finally have the premiere, the play is out, then you say, ok it was halfway right, but after some time without doing anything for it, it is there on a higher level. Because in the depths, dormant, it is processed further and then only matures. It's the same on a large scale. What is important today is that we develop an awareness of this when we develop it, i.e. of our I as a creative spiritual force.  of the highest creative power there is. I take the liberty of quoting my favourite sentence again. It is said in the congregation of Thyatira, the Greek-Latin period, where the earthly life of Christ also falls into: Christ says this unbelievable sentence: "The same authority of the I, shall give him (the human being) be my own, which I have received from my Father." The ultimate creative power, basically. Of course, it is a problem to be able to handle this power. The fact that it is potentially there in us does not mean that we can use it now. We will still need to do that. 

The first thing we have to do for this is to make our soul life the expression of the creative power of our I, that is, to work on our soul body, our astral body, the astral body is even more than our soul body, it is, so to speak, the great environment. In terms of substance it is the same. Astral world, soul world, that is the great cosmic soul. From this great cosmic soul, our astral body is first separated out as something independent, and within this astral body, since Egyptian-Chaldean times, an independent soul has been formed, a kind of refined astral, refined through the activity of the I, first unconsciously, then semi-consciously. The problem with our astral body is that we also have all the forces in there that have come in through temptation, namely the Luciferic impulses are in our astral body. That is the difference between our astral body and the great world of the soul outside, that our astral body is impaired by the activity of the adversaries. This makes it possible for our astral body to become so independent, so self-willed, so egoistic. This is not possible with angelic beings. Angelic beings cannot do that by themselves. With us it is inside.

Simply through the influence of Lucifer, who, as R. Steine often says, was ordered or commanded to this task. So that we have a problematic astral body, on the one hand a lot of wisdom inside, but also Luciferic forces inside, which lead to egoism. But now, human beings, begin to work in there and form a pure astral, a pure soul, first of all as a pure inner world, that is the three soul members a) sensory soul, b) mind or/and spirit soul and now the c) consciousness soul. This soul, as it develops from the Egyptian-Chaldean time, is not yet the immortal soul. The immortal soul that people had before was taken out of the soul world, it was something like the community consciousness, the group consciousness, the group soul of the family to which one belonged, of the ethnic group to which one belonged, that was indestructible. But basically you didn't have your own soul. One experienced the soul outside, in the community, with other people, one perhaps even saw it clairvoyantly somewhere. In the Egyptian period, this begins to be drawn inwards, what we work out there is initially still something quite fleeting. It goes away with death, unless you do something about it. One of the purposes of the Egyptian initiation was, of course, to take something immortal of the soul with us. It was already clear to the Egyptians that what we take in with our senses, or also with the slowly emerging mind, which was only there with the initiates in Egyptian times anyway, is all transient. That is gone with death. It is bound to the physical tool. Then we looked, we get the physical tool at least in the imprint as a mummy, but this spiritual, that goes away. It is lost. More development is needed. We have to work on our immortality. 

The Greeks were even more aware of this. They had a very negative attitude towards death, the underworld. They only see what is down there in terms of karmic transgressions, in terms of horrors, and nothing high immortal anywhere. That is getting more and more lost. Plato writes in the Phaedo about the immortality of the soul. It is not a question of describing what the immortal soul is like, but how I acquire it. How do I get my soul to become immortal? In his farewell monologue, before he is executed and before he dies, Socrates tells his disciples: he tells them about his whole life's journey, which was intended to help him acquire an immortal soul. Because he has worked for it, he is not afraid of death. He does not fear it. But most Greeks did fear it. They no longer saw it as a liberation into a spiritual realm. Rather, the essence of my existence is lost. On the one hand, they had already experienced something beautiful, something spiritual with the world of the senses, they were very attached to it, but you can't take that with you 1:1. You first have to spiritualise it. Then you can take it with you, but to do that you have to spiritualise your own soul. That is what the next cultural epoch is all about. 

An immortal astral body is really created out of the astral body in general, not only out of the soul body now, but out of the astral body, or rather the ability to create an astral body out of nothing. That is what one Spirit Self is called. Spiritual self is an astral body transformed by the I, or rather, the power gained through this work of transforming the astral body to create astral things out of nothing. Only then is it possible to overcome the effects of the adversary forces. Because if I can create the astral out of nothingness, I can also dissolve the astral, which is no longer suitable, into nothingness. Only then can I overcome it. That is a great task. That will be the great task in the sixth cultural epoch that follows ours, the community of Philadelphia, the community of brotherly love. It will be a matter of creating that. In order to really get so far, which is where we ended last time, that we really become a pillar in the temple of the divine Father. 

I will read this conclusion again: "Whoever overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my divine Father. He shall no more leave this temple. And I will inscribe in his being the name of my divine Father, and the name of the City of God, the New Jerusalem, which descends from my divine Father out of heaven, and my own name, the New. He who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit speaks to the churches." These are the closing lines of the letter to the church in Philadelphia. This is the first time that the New Jerusalem is addressed, i.e. those who have come to the New Jerusalem. "Pillar of the Temple of My Divine Father" upon whom the New Jerusalem will descend. The New Jerusalem points to the next embodiment of our earth. To a new cosmic state that will enter the world,  after all our earth development is complete.

R. Steiner speaks quite clearly that there will be 7 planetary embodiments, of which our earth evolution, in which we are now standing, is the middle stage. That means that three are already behind us. They have prepared this earth existence. We will have to go through three more in the future. But those who have acquired the spirit self, those are the ones who will become a pillar in the temple of the divine Father. That is something that we can already prepare now, that above all people in the congregation of Philadelphia will also do in the next cultural epoch, at least a part of them, acquire this spirit self at least to a certain degree. Within this spiritual self lies the power to consciously create the astral, perhaps not yet the whole astral body, but essential parts of it, where the power also begins to dissolve negative astral into nothingness. And thereby begin to redeem Lucifer. To release him from his task. Because then we are masters of these forces. We can use them in a positive sense and make the negative disappear. That will be very important. 

That is, if enough people have fulfilled this task, that they have developed at least a corner of this power, then basically the maximum of what we can get out of our earth development has been exhausted. At least what we can get out of our earth evolution in a physical embodiment. This means that this congregation of Philadelphia is already the age when at least a part of humanity will have reached the point where they no longer need to incarnate for their own development. There, too, many will still incarnate in order to help the others who are not yet ready. This will be essential, because without this help it will not work. You can't take their fate away from them, everyone has to manage their own fate. But you can create suitable conditions. Better conditions can be created under which one can come to terms with this fate. That will be very important. Because you have to consider that people who failed to work through their fate in the past, which they should have worked through already, that it will be even more difficult for these people in the next incarnation. It will not become easier, it will become more difficult, because it is actually already an unseason. We incarnate at a certain time because we can begin to dissolve certain stains of fate, certain pouches of fate. This dissolving of the karmic pouches is part of the development of the spiritual self, because the karmic pouches also consist of an astral burden, not only, but to a large extent of a dark astral, something that we have corrupted in our soul life, but which cannot be dissolved, which basically remains on earth, remains in the earth sphere, when we die, and which we have to fetch again at the next incarnation, have to shoulder again. Until we come to an incarnation where we are so far along that we can dissolve it. 

Actually, this is the activity, or at least the one side of developing spirit self, of dissolving our karma here on earth. We have to be aware of it, we can have all the help we need, but we have to do it ourselves. Even the Christ cannot take it from us to dissolve our karma. But we have the greatest help, because we have in our I the same power that I have received from my Father. The same power that works through the Christ can work through our ME. That is the real help. Therefore, it is very important for the future, even if you have problems in life, problems of the soul, please, it is common today, in America in general, everyone has their own psychiatrist or a psychologist, with us it is even less, but it is on the increase, or you need a life counsellor who helps you to be able to cope with your life at all. But real help is only possible where one's own self is actively awake and conscious. 

Therefore, all methods are highly problematic today that switch off the awake I-consciousness. Where I say, ok, put myself in a trance or hypnosis and cure myself spiritually. Conjure away what is disturbing me, and there can be many things in it, apart from the forces of fate, there can be the effects of spiritual entities in it, which are in the astral body, what used to be called demons, they exist, but you must not imagine them externally. What happens very often today, almost as a rule, because we live in a very materialistic age, is that the dead who have crossed over cannot cope on the other side and cling to those who have stayed behind, nestle, so to speak, in the astral body. This happens quite unconsciously. Mostly for those who have crossed over as well as for those who have stayed behind. Suddenly there are impulses in there that somehow disturb, because the dead person is looking for an anchor point down there, because through his materialism he is basically blind to the world of the soul, to the spiritual world up there, so he is basically isolated and only feels that there is something under there, that is a soul life that is related to me or is known to me. He develops an attraction to it. That can be the case very often today. It is difficult to notice. It is often the case that the dead person then instinctively tries to do what he still wanted to experience or wanted to do in the sensual realm, now it is not about big ideas, because for big ideas this can be a fruitful relationship, because this is not such an occupation of the astral body, but then it is a spiritual, conscious at least partly conscious, spiritual relationship, willed by the I, that is there. Then it can very well be the case that the dead person can inspire someone with the thoughts he has formed, which are only fully ripening over there, who is voluntarily prepared to receive this as a stimulus. And then carries it on independently. 

Many great ideas that come in come in this way. That would be the positive side of it, that we should also strive for today, that we develop an awareness of it, that we learn to observe in our own thinking at first, whoops, there's an idea, I'm going to take it in now, it didn't grow on my own dung, I know it's coming in, but it's not coming in because I read it in the newspaper or in a reference book, but it's coming from somewhere else, it's coming from a spiritual being. You don't know where it comes from at first. But it is important to feel this distinction in the thought life, which thoughts are mine, which ones I got from outside through the media or through education, and which ones come from the spiritual side. That is, I have to learn to face the thoughts observantly. Then even go further: How does this thought arise? Then I can notice that it emanates from my I, my I is the force that forms this thought. Or it is a spiritual force that is related to my I, that is also a spiritual being, but it is not I, it is another spiritual being that brings something into it. That is of course difficult. 

Because outwardly we have it very easy to face the world, we know I'm sitting there and the others are sitting over there. I see you! In the spiritual world there is no such spatial separation. Spiritual beings are not next to each other, but in each other, with each other, I can only distinguish through my consciousness, this is me and that is something else. It is often difficult even for the dead at the beginning to consciously grasp other spiritual beings, at first it is a rustling in the soul, something is happening, I don't even know at the beginning, is it my soul or where does it come from? I am inside a movement of the soul. I am a point around which everything revolves, hopefully there is a slight awareness of the I, but at first I can't decide, it's like standing in a stream, everything is flowing and I am also a stream flowing into it, but flowing on with the great stream out into the sea. Where am I? It is very difficult to find yourself in there. You can learn. Learning also through very earthly activities, I always found it interesting during my high school years.  It is the same with poetry. To absorb the peculiarity of this person's thinking, speaking, formulating, basically without any criticism at first. You read one philosopher and are enthusiastic, then you read the next one, who says exactly the opposite, you are enthusiastic again, it's the same thing. It's about getting to know each other. You get a feeling for the individuality of these people. You also get a sense of how they are shaped by their epoch, of course. In music, painting, in art everywhere as well. It is in every expression of life. 

Also in our social interaction, the most exciting thing is to get to know a person in his or her very special character. This is not about any intimate details, but about grasping the characteristics of the being. This is only possible when I connect lovingly, basically without criticism. Getting to know them, how they are, how they think, how they feel. Then I slowly begin to approach their individuality. Then I notice the enrichment, he is completely different from me. In principle, everyone is a unique individuality. It takes strength to have found oneself to a certain extent. When you have reached a certain level, it is easier to recognise yourself by recognising others. Because it has a retroactive effect. As I recognise the other in his difference, I also recognise myself better in the setback. Recognising oneself in the you. That is an important preparation for perception in the spiritual world. Because there the whole outer shell is missing. There I only have the purely spiritual, the soul, by which I have to recognise it. I no longer have this spatial confrontation. But that is possible. Possible today, if you make a conscious effort, for more people it will be possible in the next cultural epoch, in the community of Philadelphia.

It is precisely through this that one develops the spiritual self. And when one has the spiritual self, then one is ready to have it at least in part, just as we do not now have the whole authority of the I that I received from my Father, so it will be similar with the spiritual self, that in truth we still need the next planetary embodiment to fully develop it, precisely this New Jerusalem, but a beginning has been made. Those who are so far advanced in the next cultural epoch, the congregation of Philadelphia, can now receive this New Jerusalem, i.e. they are so far advanced that they can pass over into the new incarnation of our earth. There are still some spiritual stages to go through first, but they no longer require a physical incarnation. 

So - i.e. a part of humanity will no longer have to incarnate on earth towards the end of the 6th cultural epoch, the congregation of Philadelphia. There his/her last incarnation will take place. She or he will die a last death on earth. Then he or she will be so far gone that the spiritual self will be there, which means that his or her I-consciousness will also be so far gone that it will not get lost in the purely spiritual existence, precisely because the consciousness has learned to orient itself towards the spiritual world, then he or she will no longer need the sensual outer world, because we always need that for our I-consciousness as a stimulus, aha, there is something else out there and I am in there and am also something else, then we can do it in the soul-spiritual realm, then the incarnations will stop. That is around the year 5,700 AD at the earliest, says R. Steiner, that is when it will begin, that is when the population will decrease. It is expected that the population will increase to about 12 billion people by 2050 or 2100, and then begin to decrease again. In the industrialised countries today - apart from taking the pill - we are already seeing an increase in infertility and infertility. It is not for nothing that there is artificial insemination and these things. Physical procreation will become more problematic, technical assistance will be needed in some cases. There are many problems associated with it. Natural procreation has already passed its peak. The birth rate/reproduction rate has declined dramatically in the 20th century in the industrialised countries. It has fallen by a quarter from the 1950s until today. Basically, according to R. Steiner, from the 7th millennium onwards most of humanity will no longer incarnate. At the most, there is still a danger, if testimonial processes happen then, that not really human beings will emerge. That is now something difficult.

One has to say: How did animals, plants and minerals come into being? Actually, as something that man created out of himself. Of course, not the physical human being as he is today, but the human being who was originally the whole earth. That is how it begins. The original Adam must not be imagined as a male, as we are today. The original Adam is actually as big as the earth sphere, which at that time still included the moon sphere. That's where the paradise area is. He is this whole structure. The Hebrews speak of the Adam-kadmon, the cosmic Adam, actually the whole universe in the beginning. Everything. Then it shrinks. We are quite shrunk today. But in this process of becoming human, so that today we are physical human beings, during this process, the animals, for example, are eliminated from development, i.e. entities embody themselves, but they cannot absorb the I. The human being is the one who passes through, who can absorb the I and who becomes more and more intense. The human being is the one who passes through, who can absorb the I and bring it ever more intensively into reality. But there are entities that cannot take this with them, that can no longer develop this effectiveness of the I, at least not of the individual I, from which the animals arose. Even earlier in time, man has been able to wait the longest, has remained the longest in the spiritual state and has not hardened physically, before that the minerals are eliminated, because they belong just as much to it, the plants, the animals, then finally the pre-humans (Neanderthals), but that doesn't go any further either, is also eliminated, but at least already belongs to the hominids, so is very closely related to us, but is also eliminated, doesn't go any further, at the time of Atlantis there were still mating communities of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. It was still compatible, but they die out sooner or later. 

To a certain extent, that will also be the case in the future. But one must not think that an individuality goes along with it. It is then a genetically modified successor to what is human today. A very delicate question. There will be many ethical problems. The thorny issue of I-less people has already been mentioned briefly. Because that already exists today. Everything may come out of it, only not the thought that these are sub-humans, but then we must be aware that entities will then also arise for the future, because an I is no longer inside, the spiritual entity is somewhere else, but entities arise that are also important for the distant future. We have a task towards them, just as we have a task towards the animals. In truth, we must reunite the whole animal kingdom with our being. We put the animals out because there were forces in them that we could not yet manage, that is the cause. Forces that were too strong for us to handle. This process continues until the end of our incarnation. Then it stops. Then something can develop further on earth, but man no longer has an effect on it. He then takes on a larger sphere again, i.e. he slowly becomes a planetary being, a cosmic being, if you like, as the original Adam once was. But in a new way. There are still enormous questions to be asked about how to deal with this. So much for the transformation of nature, for the emergence of a nature that is completely different from what we know today. All the things that will happen in time. It will go on a bit, because the earth will not disappear immediately after the 7th millennium, and nature will also go on somehow. It will still receive forces from the outside through human beings, so that it is allowed to perish according to its age. We will cooperate from the outside. But it will be different from now. 

Nature will change a lot until the 6th-7th millennium. We are basically standing between two barriers with our cultural epochs, the beginning is the so-called Atlantic Age, which came to an end at the last Ice Age (about 9th-10th millennium BC), also at that time there were dramatic changes in nature, the animal world was a completely different one after that, the plant world changed. Of course, something has remained, but most of it has changed a lot. It will be the same at the end of the cultural epochs in the 7th - 8th millennium AD. There will be a strong change again, and what R. Steiner calls the war of all against all will happen, but this cannot mean an external war, because people will no longer be incarnated. The big question will be, how many people can I take with me? How many people will leave for another development? There will be this division. Where a certain separation of spirits is already taking place. Those who go the human way, those who leave this human way. Really dropping out, basically renouncing their human I. Perhaps they still have an I-power, but of a different kind. They will not find a place in the New Jerusalem because they do not have the appropriate abilities. A kind of secondary planet will be formed for this New Jerusalem, just as the earth has the moon today.

It could happen that an ahrimanic kingdom arises where these people, but who drop out of the regular human development, go along. One may imagine them as very intelligent, not as lower beings, they will perhaps be physically very perfect, they will have a high intelligence, but it will ultimately be put in the service of egoism, hence then the war of all against all, there it is about an intelligence where each individual strives to be the best, the greatest, who wants to dominate the whole other. Some of these people can be described as intelligence beasts in the truest sense of the word, the highest intelligence, which has nothing creative, but has high intellectual intelligence and uses it completely for its own benefit. That will be the danger towards which we are heading. That will be the great confrontation in the war of all against all. The people who have evolved in a positive sense will do everything to save those below.  This will also have an enormous influence on how the New Jerusalem, the New Jupiter, the next embodiment of this earth, will be, because if we lose many people to this other kingdom, then the New Jupiter will be a much more barren world. So it will have consequences for us too. For the others it will have the consequence that they are banished to this kingdom and basically can no longer leave it. There will be opportunities to turn back in later times. But it will then become more and more difficult. 

A difficult time will also be before this war of all against all. The 7th cultural epoch, which follows the congregation of Philadelphia, shortly after 5733 AD (2160 years per cultural epoch = passage through the zodiac), that is shortly after the beginning, where fewer people incarnate, that will then become more and more during the 7th cultural epoch, but there will no longer be many opportunities to really develop new forces. Those who have not already done the groundwork in order to be able to use the 7th epoch to harvest the fruits of this groundwork and let them mature will have a very difficult time. Therefore, this 7th cultural epoch, the next community we are talking about, the community of Laodicea, is the epoch where it is said to be lukewarm, neither warm nor cold. Indifferent somewhere. You don't move forward but you don't go back either. Everything is in limbo somewhere. 

"And to the angel of the church at Laodicea write: these things saith the Amen, who by the testimony of his being maketh faith and knowledge true, the divine creative principle of the world." This is what the Amen says. Amen is the conclusion of every prayer. What is this Amen? R. Steiner also calls it the Endwesen, the alpha and the Omega = basically, on the one hand it is the Christ, on the other hand it is the human being as he should be or could be at the end of this development. "This saith the Amen, who by the testimony of his being".that is, by what he is like. "Making faith and knowledge true", faith and knowledge. Faith has something to do with the astral body. Faith is not what we understand it to be today. Today we say, I have to believe it, I don't really know it, but I believe it. So I trust that it is true.

People would not have thought like that in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, faith was a deep emotional conviction, a certainty that what I experience is true. I can't lift it into clarity of mind, but in the mind (Wolfgang points to his chest) I am certain and I don't doubt it. When the doubt about faith begins, it begins at a time when the mind gets the upper hand, it can't get at reality, it says, I can believe that or not. That's when it starts to crumble. But the real belief is connected with the fact that I experience this spiritual reality in the astral, thus only dream-consciously. And therefore have the certainty that it is there. Just as I am certain when I am angry that the anger is there in me. Then it is not imagination. 

Or when I have the feeling of love, I say this deliberately because love is actually more. Love is a real life force. There is the feeling, but there is also a real life force. The love forces are really connected with the etheric body. Etheric body = love body. There it becomes real life force. A force that can emanate life forces, reciprocally, when people love each other it is a reciprocal exchange of life forces. A mutual influx of life forces. That is the point, when a loved one dies, then you have to work consistently to overcome that, because these life forces are gone at first, that is a deep cut in life, even if I still have contact on a spiritual level, but that level is gone, it goes up to another level, but the mutual inflow of life forces in the exchange of the etheric forces of these two etheric bodies, or several etheric bodies, if it is a whole family, that stops, that is gone with death. A bond is torn. Because only one etheric body remains there, the other dissolves into the etheric world and hands over the treasure that it has also gained through this love relationship, it hands it over to the etheric sphere. You have to work on how to deal with this change. You have to be aware that it can cause problems, even physical problems, but you can intercept it. You have to do something about it, you have to deal with it very consciously. 

It is bad to simply suppress this. Then it starts to ferment in the underground in an unhealthy way. In the worst case it can happen that the dead person tries to settle in the astral body, he feels the distress below, he has his own distress above, because he perhaps cannot cope with the world above, then he clings to it, that is an unhealthy relationship, if it does not become conscious. It is becoming more and more important today that one should approach this consciously, that there are people who can help one to become aware of it, but it must be in such a way that it is with complete wakefulness of the consciousness of the one who receives the help. When I try to do this in a hypnotic way, to lead the one who is haunting you, it is very difficult to know who it really is. The hypnotised person speaks unconsciously, the entity begins to speak, but if the person who wants to be treated is not awake, then it is quite unhealthy. Because the hypnotist does not really know which being is speaking. Then he must be a very high initiate, but if he is, then he certainly does not do it the hypnotic way. But if he is, then he certainly doesn't do it the hypnotic way, but leads the person there so that he can recognise it himself in waking consciousness. Where this problem comes from. That's why he doesn't have to experience the dead person clairvoyantly, that's not necessary. But he must recognise that these problems are connected with it. Understand why they are connected with it. 

I then begin to understand what distress the dead person has and what distress I have through the loss. There are many ways today, because the problem is virulent, where people try to go about it in a semi-conscious or unconscious way. That can go totally wrong. So don't go down a path where you can't be fully conscious every step of the way and where you are also prepared enough to bear the truths that come out. As a rule, when a person is mature enough to deal with it, he experiences it through himself anyway. It may be that he needs a few small steps of help to get to that point. But confronting immature people with it can go wrong. Then the problems are bigger afterwards than they were before. That's what we have to face. 

Community of Laodicea. The Amen is the model image towards which we are striving. Each in his individualised form. We have also eliminated those things that do not belong to us. "I see through your actions, you are neither cold nor warm." That is to say, it is no longer such an energetic spiritual activity, there is a certain dullness, perhaps also a despair, it's no use anyway, I can't do it any more anyway, because now mainly people will be incarnated who have not made it until then, or quite a few who consciously come down there now, they are not the problem then, they are not the lukewarm ones, "which are neither cold nor warm".  

"If you were at least cold or warm, but since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor warm, I will spit you out." So the final being speaks. You basically don't come to this final being. "You say I am rich and I have everything and I lack nothing."  Yes, in the external sense they may be rich. They have great intelligence, they have everything they need on the outside, the world population will have become much smaller, food will not be a problem, it will be a highly technical state. R. Steiner hints at this, he says: "The whole earth will become a self-functioning electrical apparatus." That is one perspective. The technology will be very widespread. To a certain extent, it will have to be and it will be right. A "back-to-nature" will not work. It is a "forward-to-culture" in a sense. Of course, one must not think of it as the technology we have today. It's all still primitive in comparison. In 20 years, it will all seem primitive to us. The development is getting faster and faster. 

"You do not know how wretched, how miserable and how pathetic you are, how blind and how naked". Because everything they have will mean nothing for spiritual existence. The technique disappears. It is of no use. The intelligence tied to the brain and to technology is gone. Spiritually, one will be blind and naked, i.e. there will be no spirit self, at least developed to a certain degree, that creates a halfway pure astral body. There is often talk of "white robes" the speech, the spiritual, the dress, that is an indication that the spiritual is also not in order. Most of it is mortal, it is gone. A I is there, but it doesn't see anything spiritually, it doesn't have a suitable spiritual around it that is worth talking about. It becomes problematic.

"Therefore I advise you to buy gold from me, refined in the fire, so that you may become rich again. And white robes, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not appear; and lastly, the ointment to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see." All that you do not have, you are blind, you are naked, you are poor, to accept that, to acquire it in the end through the help of others. It is an offer! There are people, through these people I work, the Amen, the Christ, the final being. We are ready to give you all the help we can. But you have to do it yourself. 

Of course, this will be a very painful time for many, in a certain way for all, painful for those who have not yet kept up with the development, it hits them very hard, but also very painful for those who are spiritually highly developed and have to watch the misery that prevails, the spiritual misery that prevails on earth with all the wealth that is there in the outer sense. The destruction of souls that exists. In an epoch that has already grown into brotherly love, into universal human love, they will suffer from it. We will all suffer from it. This seventh cultural epoch will not be a particularly pleasant time.

"Those I love, I raise through adversity".. Which I love! We will see it later in the Apocalypse, where the bowls of wrath are poured out, there are the most terrible descriptions, but then we hear that the wrath of God is an expression of love. Because that which is harmful, that which destroys man, must be transformed. But that can only be done through a painful process. Because you have to eliminate, change everything that you totally love, maybe even are addicted to, but which is harmful, which is opposing forces. I can only come out if I transform these things that give me these lower lusts. This is not to say anything against earthly lust in principle. The point is, if it only goes into egoism, then I basically destroy myself as a spiritual being. There I am working on self-destruction. Whoever saves me from that, or helps me to get out of it, that will lead in the beginning to my having to go through pain. That I am deprived of that, like an alcoholic who is deprived of the bottle. 

It will even be that people who want to help others, that when they incarnate on earth for this purpose, R. Steiner also points out that they quite consciously, out of free decision, take over the perhaps worse incarnation conditions that are actually intended for the other person because of his development, so that the other person has the best possible conditions to start with. This will only happen voluntarily, it is an act of love. But that means that fate will also be difficult for the one who actually doesn't have to come down at all. He loads extra difficulties on himself. He cannot take over the karma of the other, but he lives in extremely difficult conditions. We still have time. Starts around 5730 CE. Of course, the environmental conditions also count to some extent towards the karma, but there I can support, I cannot take the karmic task itself from him. The karma can then be carried off under better external conditions. Karma can have very different effects. Karma is about the fulfilment of a certain task, about the fact that I have destroyed or ruined certain forces in myself, in my soul/astral being, through my guilt, so that I can put them right. This can happen in different ways. Fate sometimes knocks quietly. If I then react immediately and do that, then it remains. If I am hard of hearing, the knocking becomes louder. Wake up! It is up to us.

In practice, it is not always easy to listen to the voice of fate. That means working spiritually with karma, becoming familiar with the subject of reincarnation, specifically also getting a sense of where people are with whom I am fatefully connected. It can be that you understand each other wonderfully, then everything is fine anyway, that can be very fruitful and free, a positive karma, that also exists! Karma is not always just punishment. Karma can also make powers available because I have acquired them in the past, in human relationships this works wonderfully, we complement each other, understand each other, there is no friction, these are lucky breaks at first. But we can work more consciously in the future to form such groups of people, to do something together for the future. If you take this circle that sits together here or online, there are some with a karmic past, but for sure we are building something together for the future. We are building positive karma for the future. This is then weighed against the negative, which can also be. Strokes of fate can be impulses in a good sense. 

 "So make every effort to change your mind. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Whosoever heareth my voice, and openeth the door unto me, I will enter in, and will keep the holy supper with him, and he with me." There, a greater step is already realised: the same authority I have received from my Father, that is what the holy meal is about. "To him that overcometh will I give to be enthroned with me, even as I also have obtained the victory of the Spirit, and am enthroned with my Father. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."  

The throne is not here by chance, because the next image that comes our way is about the throne in heaven. There is a great departure. The description of the Apocalypse now rises to a higher level. Up to now we have been very much occupied with the lower earthly level directly, now the view rises more and more into higher spheres. The next sphere is the sphere of the seals that are opened. First is the description of the throne in heaven. Then the book with the 7 seals, which are opened one after the other, it becomes a bit grim. At this stage the imagination is already the most important thing, we also had imaginations inside before, but nevertheless it was still related to the outer communities, to the outer cultural development, so actually it was still the outer cognition. Now it comes to the level of real imagination. This purely mental experience, but which then has to be translated into sensual images in order to be depicted. Ideally, in today's spiritual perception, one translates it oneself quite consciously. Translate it into sensory qualities. The sensory perceptions are in truth also created from imaginations, but they are shadowed by our physical apparatus. They are basically the last darkened remnants of imaginations that appear in the outer material world. Colours, for example, are quite specific soul forces, soul moods, which, when perceived through the medium of the eye, appear in the form of colours. . 

There is a very specific connection between colours and the qualities of the soul. Goethe sought this with his sensual-moral effect of colours, where he tried to see what effects the colours have on the soul. He found out a lot without being a conscious clairvoyant. He sensed that. He said of himself that he could see sensually and supersensually, that he could see the supersensible in the sensual. That automatically connects with each other in him. There is something of both halves there, only if he had wanted or been able to come to pure imagination, then he would simply have had to separate them. On the one hand, the sensual side, on the other hand, from which I now read the actual imagination. I can start from the sensual, but then I have to drop it and have the pure soul-spiritual experience, then I come to the imagination. That is for today's "clairvoyance", I don't like to use the term because it is immediately misunderstood, it is an imaginative truth. A soul-imaginative experience, imaginative because it is so incredibly rich, one can over-exaggerate it in the inner soul experience. I face it in a certain way, one can still say that with the imagination, because I can separate myself to a certain extent, I can survey the wide panorama, if only I begin to raise the thinking up to the imagination, then I really look at the thinking. Then it is not as I experience it now: aha, I form a thought, but what I form I see, so to speak, before me, not sensually but mentally, I see it before me and I only need to read off what I see there. I only need to describe it, the thinking then becomes completely different, it is not a logical, deductive thinking, it is therefore not illogical in retrospect, but I don't need that to find anything, but I have this panorama in front of me. I see that it is connected to that, down there is this, up there is that. Even that is a translation into our sensual language, because it is not really spatial. From that you can describe wonderfully.

R. Steiner's lectures are described from this direct experience, one can do this from the time when one enters into a living thinking, then it is possible. Whether I am in full imagination or not is not so decisive. The moment I come to the real experience of thinking, that is exactly where I am. Experience of thinking means that I look at it. Then I don't conclude, I don't think, but I look at it presently, figuratively speaking. That will be very important for the science of the future, above all to find the real sticking points that lead into the future, to find the really new ideas, where the real breakthroughs are, a new step is there, there is at least an imagination in the background - semi-consciously. The rest is back-breaking work to somehow implement, to formulate. That is necessary. Then it becomes spiritual science. That I can connect it. I look at something mentally, then also find the possibility of putting it into words that have a logical order, that it is comprehensible, not just a stammer, or like a medium who is not there at all with a consciousness, just babbles it out and then knows nothing about it, These are things that are not suitable for the future, that basically lead us to the adversaries, who are happy if we are not there with an awake I-consciousness.

With the great vision or with the imagination, here it is really an imagination, why do I say vision? Because this similar imagination of the throne in heaven, similar descriptions of it already exist in the Old Testament. In Isaiah, for example, or the great throne chariot imagination of Ezekiel. The Jews had their own throne chariot mysticism: Merkaba - this is actually the earliest mysticism in Judaism. Ezekiel's throne chariot vision. It is very similar to the Apocalypse, but nevertheless there are subtle differences. With John there is a completely different consciousness, but you only notice that in the subtleties, the images as such are very similar, but the understanding of the images is different, a more awake and independent one. Not yet a really awake intuition, but clear inspiration, i.e. I'm beginning to understand the picture, what I see there. 

I think it's too late today to put this imagination of the throne in heaven, but also the throne chariot vision - we'll do that in the next episode, put the two side by side. What does that look like in the old vision? What does that look like in the version of the apocalypse? That actually already points to the future. The throne chariot imagination of Ezekiel transforms into the throne chariot imagination of John, is a certain mirroring, but now with the I-consciousness in it, with what was brought about by the Mystery of Golgotha, through which the Christ passed, and through what has been valid since then: "The same authority of the I shall be his own which I received from my Father." 

Questions: a) the earth as a self-controlled technical apparatus in the 7th cultural epoch, how does this fit together with other statements?

That will form the background, that will be very closely connected with each other, outwardly it will appear as this technical structure, in the background there will be this imagination, but it will have an ahrimanic character. Therefore, it will almost come up to the physical. A technology of the future, what we have today in wireless information technology, that is a tired foreshadowing of what is to come. It will make use of technical means that definitely reach into the ahrimanic-imaginative realm. Inevitably, R. Steiner has not yet made any statements on this, because we cannot foresee the technology that will be there in such concrete terms, because it has to be developed first. It is still open how this will happen. You can see the possibilities that are there, the forces that are involved, and from that you can narrow down what could happen and what will certainly not happen. But since we are over the peak of the Earth's development, it is the case that the possibilities are becoming fewer and fewer. In the ascending phase the possibilities blossom, also how nature can unfold, transform and develop, that is not pre-programmed, it develops vividly, but towards the end it begins to limit itself again. This restriction is a way towards this mechanisation. It will certainly be a kind of hybrid technology in which living things are integrated to a certain degree, if you still want to call it life from our point of view, it is something that also contains life forces. We will also learn to deal with that. Even in information technology a certain consciousness will emerge, that is already being discussed today, astral forces will of course be involved, but they are only these mortal and transient astral forces. We will then already have a different consciousness, when we are really advanced, we will also experience the world differently, already in the sixth cultural epoch it will be different from today and even more so in the seventh. We will see much more of the spiritual, but we will still be able to get along well on the outside. 

As described in detail last time: it is not necessary for me to deal skilfully with the outside world, that I experience it as I am experiencing it now. I can very well experience it mentally-imaginatively, and the mentally-imaginatively experienced images guide me quite safely so that I deal with it well, from the outside it looks like he is poking around skilfully, what he experiences in consciousness is quite something else. Animals experience the world in a completely different way and also deal with it skilfully: a squirrel that skilfully turns the nut, it is a great experience that the squirrel has, but it has nothing to do with what we see externally in the process > it experiences something completely different, a kind of lower imagination, a lower level of an imagination. A practised musician, when he listens to another musician, he hears something completely different than a layman who hears a piano piece for the first time. A practised musician hears the subtleties. The touch. 

The perception of the world is very different. Of course there is something objective at the basis of it, but how that is represented in consciousness or how we form our consciousness, it is not a representation but a forming, we form something, we perceive the world and form an image of it. It is a representational image where we face things, it is the way we experience now. But it was different back in the Urpersian times. A few thousand years back, people experienced things very differently. They had only just begun to consciously perceive the world in contours, more black and white and chiaroscuro, in shades, not like we do. Even among the Greeks there is a weak awareness of the blue tones. They do not yet have the whole colour spectrum in their experience. The Egyptians, who are earlier, do, they have that much more, not the whole either but much more. It overlaps. Not everyone goes through it at the same pace. When I put myself in animals' shoes and try to imagine how they perceive, it becomes very difficult. The further away the animal is from our structure, from our organ system, the more difficult it becomes. I can try to create an inner experience of it. That makes you very flexible. One is then oneself the creator of something spiritual - quite consciously. I try to put myself in the place of another. As an exercise. The artist does that. 

A Picasso, the cubists, they left out perspective, he no longer experiences perspective, it's all squares or squares, it's a different way of seeing. We should come to spiritual perception, then we should have it next to external perception, we should be able to have both next to each other, the next stage is that, in the community of Philadelphia, that we can have that together next to each other, so being inside in the imagination and looking at the outside world at the same time. That is possible! It works in meditation. You can see it on the clock. When you are really inside the imagination, the outer time does not pass. You can move wonderfully in the imagination, I have the feeling that hours are passing inwardly, if I manage to look at the second hand next to it at the same time, then it stops. The clock stops. That is reproducible. I have to manage to stay on both levels of consciousness without mixing them up, it's not easy. With the old clairvoyance, this mixing was inherent. There, the sense quality immediately mixed with the imagination and that's why they used to experience the imagination in such a way that it looked more like an altered sensory - like a dream image. The sense qualities were there automatically. That is not the case with the real imagination today. That is only the case when I translate it consciously. Then I can see it in the imagination like a sensory image, which can also condense into a sensory image in experience. But I have to want that. It doesn't happen automatically. Then I would not be able to distinguish it so clearly. That is important. The most important thing today is to be consciously present at every step. Only these steps count. Everything that happens unconsciously is of no use at all. With many esoteric currents today, imaginations can come very quickly. Most of them are sensually toned. People are enthusiastic. But what is really behind it? It is often very culture-specific. That is not the case with modern imaginative looking. I then consciously translate it into images that are from our cultural sphere, or I try to translate it for someone from another cultural sphere, then I will do it differently, I need enough experience in the other cultural sphere, then maybe I can do it. I can tell the difference. That is very important today to find a clear self-confident way through. Otherwise we fall into the clutches of the adversaries, they always come along nicely, they are pleasant, they adapt. Whereas the real imagination can also be very painful. The experience, for example, I want to connect with a spiritual being, there is a sympathetic force, but it doesn't work. I can't get close to it. That can be very painful. Or I see destructive forces that someone brings in. It's not always fun. So watch out. 

That is why my path is the anthroposophical one, which is very slow to come to imaginations. It is more than a weekend seminar. But what you experience then is solid. One understands what it is all about. You are prepared for it. There is nothing in it where I have to say, now I have to sell my mind. It's without contradiction to other things, not in a way: during the week I'm a scientist and technician and at the weekend I go to the imagination seminar, everything is different there. The truths have to be such that I can connect them with real life. Then I have to admit to myself that I cannot yet understand some of Steiner's statements. In the 7th millennium the incarnations will be pretty much at the end. They say that in the 8th millennium the reunification of the earth with the moon will take place. That is quite a hammer for the outer mind. Sure a natural disaster can always happen. Right now the moon is flying away from us. Every year the moon is a few inches further away from us. So from an external point of view, nothing is foreseeable in this direction, that the moon and the earth will unite. How are we to imagine this? It won't be so clumsy that the moon simply falls onto the earth. The essential thing is: the incarnations cease, the fertility and procreative capacity is gone. But the powers of procreation are connected with the lunar forces, and they are connected with the lunar forces that act from outside. From a spiritual point of view, the moon has therefore gone out of the earth in order to draw out the hardening forces of the moon, so as to make living development on earth possible at all. Otherwise everything would have been mummified. Then it would not have worked with reproduction. The reproductive forces work because the moon works from the outside. So it will have something to do with these forces. These hardening, lignifying, dying forces, they will again connect more with the earth. If the moon had not gone away, if the lunar forces had not been drawn out, then it would not be possible to experience sexual reproduction and fertility on earth, because everything would be too hard. The time when procreation will no longer be possible will then be the time when the moon reconnects. That is all I know about it. The separation of the moon from the earth was a long process. In reality, it is a common structure where one part condenses into the earth on the inside, another part surrounds the earth on the outside and slowly condenses into the moon. That would be a picture of it. External science can't say much about it either, they have a few theories. It's all highly speculative. We know it was originally a body.